The Bridge
by Jaquellinore
Summary: Arthur is at a loss. He meets a mysterious lady at the top of the Golden Gate Bridge and feels compelled to obey her.
1. Chapter 1

The Bridge

Chapter One

He'd gotten a tip from Mera that San Francisco could see a little trouble from his half-brother. Her tone had been urgent, and she used phrases like 'many casualties' and 'widespread devastation' but when he arrived most of the residents of the city had already evacuated to higher ground, and any large vessels had gone out to the deep water where the wave could not affect them. The tsunami warning system had beat him to the party.

Arthur studied the unnaturally low tide. He probably had enough time to survey the shoreline from the ocean before the wave hit, especially after he delegated some of the work to a local pod of dolphins.

*The danger zones appear to be completely clear of walkers,* one informed him.

'Huh,' he said, a little disappointed as he bobbed up and down in the briney green water, 'I guess I should stick around to make sure…' he trailed off. The bottlenose grinned at him. 'To make sure.' he said again. He glanced up at the golden gate bridge. It was a beautiful summer day. 'Hey, would you mind giving me a boost?'

He dove down and felt the snouts of two dolphins nestle into the soles of his feet, plunging him deeper into the ocean. They levelled so close to the bottom of the bay he could almost touch the drifting kelp and the (hopefully still sealed) barrels of toxic waste with his fingertips. They swung upwards, the dolphins put on a burst of speed and they broke the surface. The sunlight dazzled his eyes as he hurtled through the air. Their aim had been perfect. He caught hold of a suspension cable in the bridge and held tight with a calloused hand.

'Thanks guys!' he shouted to the pod as they flipped and chattered below him. 'You should probably go somewhere safe,' he said, glancing out at the bulge on the horizon. It wouldn't be long now. He climbed hand over hand until he reached the walkway and swung his body over, shaking the seawater out of his sun-bleached hair. One of the pillars of the golden gate would make a good vantage point to watch the ocean come back in. He reached the top of the pillar and froze. He wasn't alone. At the top of the next piller was a lady. She was facing away from him so all he could see was her powder blue coat and matching hat.

'Ma'am?' he called.

She turned her head slightly so that he could see her profile.

'Ma'am? Are you okay?'

She turned back away from him. He approached her quickly.

'Are you at a loss, Arthur?' she asked when he was close enough to see the wisps of hair that had come loose from her bun. It should have made him uneasy - how did she know his name? She hadn't used it as a threat or a taunt the way others who'd learned his identity had in the past. There was a fastidious tone to her voice, making him feel suddenly sheepish of his dripping hair and bare feet. He clasped his hands together and walked around the platform to face her.

Her face was calm and observant. He realised she was waiting for him to answer.

'I guess I am,' he said.

She smiles. 'We know it's a good thing when they don't need our help anymore. When they can take care of themselves. But we also have to shoulder the burden of obsolescence,' she said.

'I wouldn't call myself…' he trailed off. He realise the offense had distracted him from the strange reality of the situation. He was standing on top of the Golden Gate Bridge, waiting for a Tsunami to hit with a strange woman who knew his name.

As if reading his thoughts she cast her eyes to the horizon.

'I think I can see the bulge approaching.'

He saw it too. A distortion of the horizon as the ocean began to roll back in. A strange roar increased in volume as the wave picked up speed i their direcino. It was like the sparkling of a freshly poured club soda, but amplified to an unthinkable volume. She rose. He was used to towering over people but this lady could meet his eyes without even tilting her head back.

'You're going to miss it, he said, watching as the green wave began to crest below her, like a velvet curtain.

She placed her cool hands on either side of his ribcage and as the wave crashed against the suspension cables she kissed him. Her lips were as cool as her hands. The platofrm shook and their air was full of salty mist as his lips melted into the icy softness of hers.

She drew back, and suddenly became a foot shorter. Had she been standing on something? He looked down at her feet. They were turned out in a balletic pose, and planted firmly on the even surface of the platform. He opened his mouth to try and form a question about her sudden change in height.

'Close your mouth, Arthur, we are not a codfish.'

He obeyed. He considering cracking a joke about all the codfish he'd met being decent company, when he heard the softed impact reverberating off the hills.

'I think some choppers are coming,' he said.

'We'd better go. They'll be press helicopters, no doubt.'

The lady primly snapped open a bag made of some kind of thick corduroy and drew out an umbrella. It must have been packed cleverly, cause it looked a little too long…

'Hold this please, Arthur,' she said, handing the bag to him. She popped the umbrella open and put her arm around his waist. The sleeve of her coat was just as cool against his bare skin, as if she'd been walking in the snow. His feet rose from the platform and they ascended into the air. AS they left the bridge behind Arthur watched a fog rollin across the bay. The news choppers wouldn't be able to record a thing.

He had a couple of friends who could fly. There was Clark, and Diana… of course! This lady must be an amazon. Although her accent was different. She sounded more like princess Kate than Diana princess of Themyscira.

'Cat got your tongue, Arthur?'

'Are you an Amazon, Miss?'

'Mary. And no. Although the ladies do let me summer on the island from time to time. The climate is lovely, but the sun is a little too strong for me.'

'Great,' Arthur said, remembering to close his mouth this time. 'So Mary, where are we going?'

'Back to my flat,' she said, 'given that you're at a loss, perhaps you'd like to stay for the afternoon.'

His usual response to an invitation would have been something along the lines of, 'sure,' or 'no, thanks anyway,' but he felt like this lady was used to being spoken to more formally. He borrowed a phrase from his mentor, 'I'd be delighted to spend the afternoon in your flat, Mary, he said softly.

She smiled.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter two

It was the top floor of a typical San Francisco terrace, halfway up the hill and therefore safe from the Tsunami. They flew in through the open window.

'Aren't you worried about looters?' Arthur asked.

'Looters should be worried about me.'

She stepped behind a painted dressing screen and he heard her let out a small sigh. He tightened his grip on the handle of the bag, noticing the four-poster bed and wondering what 'spending the afternoon' might mean. She stepped out from the other side of the dressing screen.

'Oh,' Arthur said.

Her hair fell in a sculpted wave down one shoulder, which was now exposed by the black satin evening gown she wore. Arthur's brain was caught between telling her how beautiful she looked and asking how she was able to change so fast. _Super speed?_ He'd seen Clark change clothes in the blink of an eye.

'Mary?'

'Yes?'

'Are you… from… Krypton?'

She frowned. 'It was a dreadful shame what happened to that planet. Would you hand me my bag, please?' Mary held out a gloved hand. 'We'll have to find you something suitable to wear.'

'Are we going someplace fancy?' he asked. She smiled and removed a tape measure from the bag. 'Oh I'm six six,' he said.

'I like to be accurate. Foot here please.' He obeyed, holding the tab of the tape measure down with his bare toe so she could measure him. She rose up to meet his eyes, somehow the same height as him again. As she took the reading he trained his eyes on the diamond drop hanging from her earlobe so his eyes would not drift down to her decolletage. 'Aha,' she said, 'Arthur Curry, hates shoes, angry at himself.' She looked at him mildly. 'We'll have to do something about that.'

It was an oversimplification, but he supposed the feeling of guilt and grief that twisted in his chest when he was alone too long could be described as anger. That's why showing up to save people from his half-brother made him feel better. He wasn't doing it _just_ to feel better, of course—

'Arthur.' He looked at her deep brown eyes again. 'You've fallen into a hole. You need some perspective.'

She took his hand and let him towards the dressing screen. Her fingers were as cool as mist. He studied the design painted on the screen - plump clouds tinged with pink above a dancing ocean. He blinked. It was one of those old oil paintings that looked as if it were moving. The clouds seemed to spiral and dilate like an iris. He blinked again, and the feeling of cool mist enveloped him. His foot left the hardwood floor and fell upon…


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

… mist. Not mist, a cloud. It was sunset. They were thousands of feet above the ocean. This was unusual, sure, but Arthur himself was Atlantean. His mother's people were a sophisticated society living under the sea, and humans were never the wiser. It stood to reason, Arthur thought, that there could be an entire population up here. Mary wasn't Athenian or Kryptonian. Maybe she belonged to some sort of hidden cloud race.

That didn't explain the tuxedo.

He'd been wearing his armour a second ago. Minus the boots. Mary's tape measure was right, he did hate shoes.

He was still barefoot, but now the rest of his attire matched hers in formality. He moved his feet experimentally, feeling the way the cloud reformed underneath them. It was a little like walking on cotton candy, and his ankles shuddered as he concentrated on keeping his balance. The cloud was the same temperature as Mary's skin.

He looked at her for an explanation of… everything. Her shoulders had turned golden in the fading light, and the other clouds drifted behind her, tinged rose and mauve. He squinted at them to see if there were any signs of life.

'Looking for something?' she asked.

'Uh.' The cloud shifted below his feet and he fell backwards. Suddenly she was there, falling with him with the crook of her elbow beneath his head. She smelled like breafast tea with a hint of something else. Rum, and… was that chalk? They landed and sank an inch into the mist.

'Mary, are you…'

'Am I a what?'

'Are you a cloud… lady?'

'A cloud lady?'

'Like, are there people who live in clouds?'

Her eyes sparkled. He wondered for a second if she had ever laughed out loud, or if she kept it all inside with the rest of her secrets.

'No, Arthur. There are not.'

'Then where are we?'

'The top floor of a terrace house in San Francisco,' she said.

Arthur laughed, but Mary's expression changed. She'd retained the myrth, but there was something else there too. A challenge. He looked away from her at the dome of the sky, and heard the faint but familiar sound of the ocean radiating from below them. Mary's hand crept under the base of his skull, and then tightened into a fist, pulling the hair close to his scalp. She put her lips close to his ear and said again, 'we're in the top floor of a terrace house in San Francisco, aren't we Arthur?'

'Yes, we are.'

'Good,' she said, and snuggled into his neck.

She lifted her other hand, and Arthur watched as the saturn glove dissipated into black vapour. As she covered the skin over his carotid artery in icy kisses, she touched the buttons on his shirt. One by one they evaporated the the same way Mary's glove did. His shirt fell open and her hand chilled his ribcage the way the ocean never did. He was frozen to the spot.

'Are you afraid, Arthur?'

'No.'

'What would you say if you were?' She loosened her grip on his hair and came to float above him. The neckline of her dress had begun to blur. Tendrils of mist shifted in the breeze away body, revealing more of her. His breath deepend.

'Eyes on mine, Arthur. What would you say if you were afraid?'

'I guess I… I guess I'd say we were on a cloud.'

She smiled. 'That will do nicely.

Her hand traced a figure of eight on his chest and his shirt was carried away on the breeze. He tried to reach for her but a trail of vapour had snaked around his wrist and hardened. He flexed against them. His ankles were bound as well.

'Mary,' he said with a hint of mock accusation, 'you've got some moves.'

'I don't know what you're talking about.'


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter four

The rest of his clothes dissolved away, and a band of cloud snaked over his forehead, so he would not quite see what Mary was doing to him. Her hands here on his chest, his neck, his growing…

Something caught his eye. Mary wasn't touching him at all. She was floating above him, her face a mixture of lust and mirth.

'Hey!' he shouted, resisting the bonds. They only hugged him tighter and the tendrils of cloud that caressed him increased in pressure and speed. He groaned, and a whisp snuck inside his mouth, and resisted like flesh as he bit down.

Mary drew closer again. Her dress was now black shifting mist around her body. Arthur's eyes drank it in, searching the changes in texture over her bust for a glimpse of skin.

'Do you want this to stop, Arthur?'

'N…uhhhh,' the cloud increased the intensity of movement again as he tried to answer her.

'What was that?'

'Ngggooo…' he tried to form the word around the gag that had formed in his mouth. He was so close…

'I think we better.'

'Nggg…'


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

The crystal tumbler of iced tea slipped out of his hand. He caught it again, but icy cold liquid splashed his lap.

'Hng,' he grunted. It was as if his body had been reset from the brink of orgasm to a state of rest. His mouth even tasted like iced tea. He looked around him. There was the four-poster bed, there was the dressing screen. The cloud design was quite still. He was back in his Atlantean armour, sitting in a wingback with a crystal jug of iced tea in front of him.

'Everything all right, Arthur?' Mary asked with polite concern. She was reclining in the window seat with the San Francisco hills rolling behind her, cradling her crystal tumbler. Her clothes were no longer mist but cotton. She'd regained some of the primness that had first struck him. Her hair was even back in that bun.

'You can't edge me like that, Mary!'

'Excuse me?'

'That whole thing with the cloud and the… other cloud…'

'Arthur, you've just been telling me about your family.'

'Huh, nice try. I don't tell anyone about my that.'

'I'm interested to know,' Mary paused to take a sip from her own glass, 'why you think that there was anything you could have done to protect her. You were three.'

'What?'

'When the Atlanteans took your mother away. You said you were three.'

'I, I was.'

'There's no way a three-year-old could stand up to an army of Atlanteans. Your father was a grown man. Your mother was an Atlantean warrior. They fought as hard as they could but the army had numbers and weapons. None of you could be blamed.'

Arthur sat back in the chair and dragged his hand down over his beard.

'Sure,' he said finally, 'I know… I'm not stupid, I know you can't expect a three-year-old kid to fight an army, but…'

'But if only you were a little older? When you'd learned how to fight?'

'Maybe, yeah, or…'

'If only you'd never been born?'

The guilt came again. It squeezed his ribs and gurgled in his chest. 'I… yeah. I think about that a lot.'

'Hm,' Mary said. She reached up into her hair, pulled out a bobby pin, and dropped it in the lap of her skirt. 'I meet a lot of children who think they've caused all kinds of terrible things.' Marry pulled out another pin and dropped it with the first. 'There was a little boy who thought he caused a riot in london.'

'A kid thought he caused the London riots?'

'Mm, yes.' Mary's hand continued to remove the pins as she spoke. 'Little Michael. He was seven. And an old man had stolen his tuppence - two pennies. Michael panicked and shouted, 'give me back my money. Give me back my money.' I expect I might do the same if someone had stolen from me.'

'Sure,' Arthur said. He doubted Mary had ever shouted anything in his life, but decided not to say so.

'This happened in a bank. It was full of customers lining up to see the tellers. When Michael shouted 'give me back my money,' they didn't see a little boy overwhelmed by his feelings. They just heard the word. 'Money.' Someone's money had been taken. The customers thought their money was in danger, and rushed the tellers. The tellers thought the vault was in danger so they closed the bars on the counter. The customers were climbing over one another to get to the counter so they could rattle the bars, and all the while, they were echoing little Michael. 'Give me back my money. Give me back my money.' He was so frightened he ran away from home.'

Mary's hair finally unfurled. She shook her head a little and it spread over her shoulders.

'Did you find him?'

'Yes. We did. He was wretched with guilt, but we found him.'

'He knows now, right? He knows the riots weren't his fault.'

'That's a very kind thing to say. If you saw Michael right now, would you tell him the riots weren't his fault?'

'They weren't. They just… weren't. Adults make all kinds of decisions. They've got so much more power than kids but they abuse it…'

'What about little Arthur? If you saw him now. Three years old. Would you tell him it wasn't his fault?'

'I…'

And suddenly she was there again. His head was in the crook of her elbow and they were falling backwards onto her four poster bed.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter six

There is a certain kind of sleep that you slide into consciousness from as easily as letting your body sink into a bath. For arthur, that bath was a warm afternoon with dust motes shifting in a golden shaft of light from a window on the top floor of a San Francisco apartment. Arthur didn't move. He knew if he moved he would feel the restriction of his Atlantean Armour and that he might wake the woman cradling his head in the crook of her elbow. He couldn't see her face, but he could tell from the flacial rise of her breast that Mary Poppins was asleep.

A smile rose slowly on his lips. She'd capured him… no he'd let himself be captured. He'd followed her into that cloud world and she'd chained him up. She'd hone more to take away his will than any other 'mastermind' he'd come up against, because, well, because she was Mary Poppins.

He stayed exactly where he was a moment longer, and then tried to rise from her embrace without waking her. He wasn't the most graceful on dry land. His foot touched the creakiest floorboard in the house, and the next step he took found the runner up.

'Arthur?'

'I didn't want to wake you.'

'You're leaving?' She said. Arthur tried to find a way of putting it delicately. Yes. Yes he was. 'Close your mouth, Arthur, we are not a codfish.' He obeyed. 'I don't want you to stay forever, but you should stay just one more hour. There's something you haven't done yet.'

'What's that?' he asked. She didn't move from the bed, she barely moved at all. All she did was press her lips together, leaving them bright and wet. If he kissed them he would be captive again. 'Mary?'

'Yes Arthur?'

'Are you, a…' _are you an evil sex genius giving me the impression that I'm free to go only to lure me into a false sense of security so I'll wander willingly back into your clutches?_

'You know what I am, Arthur.' He gulped. She'd heard his thoughts, he was sure of it. 'I told you, I'm a nanny.'

He took one more long look out the window at the sloping street.

'Yeah,' he said, 'that makes sense.'


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

He found the fact that Mary wore a corset oddly unsurprising. So too was the fact that her fingers knew exactly how to unlatch his armour. But when the eyeles of her corsed finally burst open, and he touched her through the cotton of her slip, her body was finally warm

He looked inter her eyes for an answer, but he should have known he would find none. She climbed into his lap, no longer weightless as a cloud, and her mouth tasted like tea and lemon. He wondered what she could taste.

'Sea salt,' she whispered in his ear.

'What?'

She pulled his breastplate over his head and her hands flicked open the catches of his trousers. If he stood up…

'Lift me,' she said.

He held her by the ribs and stood. His thigh plates clattered as they hit the floor, and the boards squeaked as he stepped delicatedly out of his armour and then pressed Mary to the wall with his body. His lips on her neck, and his hands over the cotton could feel that her skin was now hotter than his. The flush of her cheeks had spread to her chest and neck.

He could pull the slip over her head. He could sink inside. But he stopped himself and looked at her.

'Was this what you wanted me to stay for, Mary?'

She arched against the wall and against his body. The snow and sunset of her skin called for his lips, he could almost feel the soft curves beneath her translucent slip, but he kept his hands on her ribs.

'You can't edge me like this, Arthur,' she said, breathlessly.

He leaned close to whisper in her ear.

'Were you at a loss too? When you found me on top of the bridge?'

Her breathing slowed. 'Yes, I was.'

'How about now?'

He saw the challenge come back into her eyes. She slipped her hand under his hair and grabbed a fist full close to his scalp.

'Arthur, I swear to god if you don't ravish me right now I'll put you back in the cloud chains.'

It was as more of an admission to anything than she'd made the whole afternoon, and he suspected it was the best he'd get. He through her back onto the four-poster bed and pushed his head beneath her slip.

Mary tasted a little like sea salt as well.


End file.
